April 21, 2025 • 36 mins
Big Ben talks about a weekend of NBA Playoff action including the Rockets losing at home to the Warriors, Ja Morant and the Grizzlies getting blown out by the Thunder, Luka and the Lakers losing at home to the Timberwolves, Maller to the Third Degree, Insta-Advice Line, and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of the Ben Mahler
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
from two to six Eastern eleven pm to three am
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and to find your local
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Speaker 2 (00:23):
This is the best of the Ben Maler Show on
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
In all weekends. Basketball Poloser I was like one or
two DC games. Welcome in the beginning of another week
of the Ben Mahler Show. We are in the air
everywhares we rub elbows, and boy do we rub them
(00:54):
from the theater of the mind, coast to coast, border
the border, and beyond on the vast in tantalizingly powerful
microphones of FSR emmating live from inside the greasy spoon,
frying up, piping hot sports takes under the cover of
(01:15):
darkness from the Fox Sports Radio studios as we hang
out side by side, and we begin the festivus of
talk here with the last game that was played, and
it was eastern night. Now still on the west, it's
still eastern night, but the end of Day two of
(01:36):
the NBA card And I don't know if you were
watching all this, maybe a es she's do something else,
but I checked it out. I consumed the product. It
kind of goes with a job. So we watched it
so you would not have to to comment to comment
on the events that took place over the weekend. So
pro bouncy ball. If you hate pro bouncy ball, you're
(01:57):
not gonna like the next couple of months because a
lot of pro bouncy ball. But we do have the
NFL Draft which is coming up later this week, which
is which is a good NFL draft, So we have
that to break it up. But we're gonna start in
the lone Star State where the number two seeded rock
Cats we're playing host to the Stephen Curry numbers seven,
(02:21):
number seven. We don't have a seven. I don't have
a button. We don't have it. We need a set.
We need the ones, the twos, the trees, the fourth,
the five, the sixth, the seventh, the eights, and the nines.
We need. If we have all of those, we're good.
So we can have random listers just call up and
just start singing different numbers and then we have every number,
and then we're gonna need the a's, the b's, the c's,
(02:41):
the d's, the e's. The end, we'll go through the
whole alphabet and we'll have a letter and we'll have
a number for everything. But anyway, I don't saw the
game or night. It was the last game they played
end not too long before we cracked the microphones here
on on FSR. So the Warriors tray for very little,
(03:02):
like none. They dominated, I mean early, very early in
the game, but the wars led by as many as
twenty three points, and then there was, as it typically happens,
Houston snaked their way back into the game a little
bit down by nine entering the fourth quarter. I never
got the feeling that the Rockets were going to actually
win the game, and that turned out to be the case.
(03:24):
My premonition was accurate. Now Stephen Curry twelve of nineteen
from the four, did not hit a three point shot
for a while, but then ended up five of nine
from three point land, and Jimmy Butler getting her done
there with twenty five points, seven rebound, six assists, five steals,
and a partridge in a paar tree. As a game
(03:45):
two will be played next month. No game two will
be Wednesday, because you know it's very difficult to play
games more than two days apart. My god, So the
next game will be on Wednesday there and in Houston,
so they will continue. Now you know the way it
works here. The better story is in the losing locker room.
And so let us discuss the events that took place
(04:08):
there in Houston. Who gets the blame bowl of tex
mechs for the Roquets as they lose home court advantage
in their first game out in this particular series. So
I have brand ambassadors, sandwich board, and hall pass, and
(04:29):
we will combine all of these things together and we
are going to make a wonderful, delicious plate filled with
banana cream pie. Right, say a little dish there with
banana cream pie. All right? So a the Sins watching
the Rockets, and the Rockets are a physically talented team.
(04:51):
They're a younger team. They won a bunch of games
actually tried during the regular season, and so you racked
up a lot of wins and all that stuff. And
it's great. The way you look at these things, it's
OCAM's razor. The most obvious is usually the right answer.
On these things, and I mean people overlook the obvious
to try to find more complex explanations for the outcome
(05:12):
of events. I don't believe it's that deep. It's just sports.
It's not that deep. And it's right in front of
your schnaz right in front of your schnaz. Here when
you look at it, you got Jalen Green on one
side and Fred van Vliet on the other side. High
crimes and misdemeanors for these two. Who stinks well those
(05:33):
two right off the top. Now it was like an
urban legend playing out in the NBA playoffs right in
front of Ryse. And now normally it's just the vanishing hitchhiker
that just gets in the car and then you don't
know where they went and what happened, And or you
see them off in the distance, you get closer, they're
not there. You don't know. But these guys Green and
(05:54):
Van Vliet were brand ambassadors for preparation age. They played
like they had hemorrhoids and watching them, you thought you
had Hemorrhoy's how bad was it? It was so bad.
Jalen Green three of fifteen from the floor aer four
from Downtown. Van Vliet who's got playoff experience from the
(06:15):
stays in Toronto four of nineteen from the floor. So
if you do the math, the Rockets starting backcourt was
outscored by twenty eight points by Golden State, just backcourt
to backcourt, Mono Amano, the Warriors starting backcourt shot fifty
three percent from the floor. The Rockets starting backcourt attempted
(06:41):
a total of thirty four shots and they made seven
of them, which sucks anywhere you go. The rest of
the team, the Rockets, if you take the back court
out right in the Gifson Botts, Candy Nuts, the rest
of the back court or the rest of the front
court and everyone else outscored the Warriors by eighteen. How
about on the other you've got Stephen Curry and how
(07:03):
is he feeling? How's Golden State feeling right about now?
After this performance in Game one? So this is the blueprint.
It's kind of clear that this is the blueprint, right
and nothing radical. This is why they went on got
Jimmy Butler, playoff Jimmy, as the legend goes Jimmy Butler.
It was a prototypical type performance and fortunately the NBA
(07:24):
giving the Warriors lots of time off in between games,
so they don't they don't have to worry about that.
They'll rest and relaxation, enjoy Houston to go back out
and play on Wednesday. Now to the dust Bowl. A
game that was so bad? How bad was it was
so bad? We need to mention the number one seed
in the entire NBA Oklahoma City in the Western Conference.
(07:47):
There they put on a clinic and it wasn't just
a click. I don't believe that does justice to what
happened in this particular game, the smashing of the grizz
in Memphis. Memphis is completely torn to bits in Okay,
see now, a fifty one point margin. An NBA team
that made the playoffs, granted they were in the plane,
(08:09):
lost a game by fifty one points. Do you know
how bad one has to play to lose a game
by fifty one points? And it's just stunning. And now
John Morand attempted to reassure the fan base that things
are going to be okay, that it will never get
(08:30):
this bad again. Let's go to the audio tape, take
a listen.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
We'd never no play about it again. Defensive intensity, they
had a lot of easy looks, which pretty much getting
you know wherever they wanted on the floor and offensively
taking care of the ball.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Defensive intensity. I think my fat ass could have played
better defense than those guys. There was no defensive intention
all right, So Ja moran, they're not real confident. As
he attempted to reassure the fan base that everything will
be okay, and he said that money quote, we will
never play that bad again. Is that strong enough? Well,
(09:07):
that was a rhetorical question. Of course, it's not strong enough. No,
you're supposed to be the franchise player here. I am
a franchise were here. I'm talking about a game, a
playoff game, a playoff game we lost by fifty one points.
My god, fire the coach again. Where's Taylor Jenkins? Fire
him again? Not the coach? Fire him again. You've lost
a playoff game by fifty one points. And I flashed
(09:28):
back years ago when I started out and radio, I
covered the NBA regularly and one of the people he's
long gone now, Bill Fitch. It was a Hall of
Fame coach, and he explained to me that no matter
how bad one team is compared to the other team
in terms of talent, per see the perception of talent
He explained to me, if the lesser team plays with
(09:49):
the proper effort and energy and plays the fundamentally sound
way of basketball, they will not get blown out. That
if you just put the effort in that you can
the gap the talent gap. UH. And I watched, I'm like,
whoa that is? I thought. I thought maybe my phone
had glitched when I looked at the score, and I
(10:09):
was like, ah, no, I must not be right. I
mean maybe somebody hacked the uh, the website that I
used to look at the score, and then I turned
it on and I was like, oh my god, what
a monstrosity. This is unbelievable. I mean, holy Canoli. This
is not the vomit comment that the vomit commet is
not strong enough here. This is somebody needs to be
(10:32):
court martialed. There needs to be a court martial here.
Naming and shaming. I'm talking about sensing multiple people and
you can go down the list. There's like seven or
eight prime suspects here who need to wear the sandwich
board and walk outside the arena, and the sandwich board
can point out how they violated, uh, the the tenants
(10:54):
of basketball competition and all that, and they're guilty of
dereliction of duties. Man, That is what does a game
by fifty one points? I mean, oh, Oklahoma City's great,
They're not that much greater than Memphis, Mike got all right.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Now.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Last word to Boston we go, where the Celtics were
trailing midway through, but in the end they dominated when
they they pulled away there in the second half and
they d up winning. Jason Tatum though the story here
not the game with Orlando. The story is Jason Tatum.
Was it a snap crackle pop situation? Tatum? He came
(11:34):
down tumbling down on his wrist. Oh, my aching wrist,
and they'll postgame X ray situation for Jason Tatum. He
said of his right wrist, it was clean, the X
ray said, he said, was clean, and he was all right,
all right, he said. He came down there in the
(11:55):
fourth quarter. As Jason Tatum ended up playing, he had
seven seventeen points eight of twenty two. Didn't do much
anything early in the game, played nearly forty minutes of
game time here. The injury happened with eight twenty eight
to go in the fourth quarter, and he was driving
for a dunk attempt at the rim and ow aUI
(12:17):
aUI Kazawi. I think that's the actual sound aUI Kazawi's
what he said. Possibly not. So question do you believe
Do you believe Jason Tatum when he says his wrist
is all right, and he also said the X rays
were cleaned? You believe? Do you believe all that? So
my position on this is whether the X ray was
(12:39):
clean or not. I assume it was, and him saying
he's all right, my position on that is it's not cracked.
It's not cracked. However, Tatum now has something very valuable
for the next three or four games, possibly longer than that.
He's got a Hall pass. He starts clanking up missus,
(13:01):
he's got well, you know, it's in my wrist, and
I'm trying to fight through it, trying to fight through
the wrisk problem. And he's got the immunity papers. If
he starts making a brick house the old brick house there,
clanking jumpers right and left and just not being very efficient.
So this this has the makings of what a gentleman's sweep,
(13:23):
as they like to call it, in the playoffs, where
you end up winning the games at home. You lose
Game three, and then you bounce back and win the
next couple and winning five, and that's that the Celtics
flipping the switch in the second half of that game,
and so they end up winning by a comfortable margin
at home against Orlando.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
All dressed up for a dud, welcome in not beginning
of another hour of the Ben Malor Show. We are
in the air everywhere as we stay in touch and
provide the pulse of the night. There is still a
(14:13):
pulse there coast to coast, border, the border and beyond
on the vast and nourishingly powerful microphones of fs are
ammating live from the bell as we ring the bell
all night long from the Fox Sports Radio studios. And
I know JJ in Renton loves to ring bells unless
(14:37):
he doesn't. But here we are hanging out together again
this hour and our lead to begin the hour, we
continue our in depth team coverage from Pro bouncy Ball,
Round and Round and Round. Now we talked about the
games that were played on Sunday, not too much to
dissect there. Lopsided everywhere pretty much, I mean nothing. They
(14:59):
came down to the bitter end in that. But we're
gonna turn our focus to what happened on Saturday over
the week, and we'll pick apart the games on Saturday.
Get back to the conversation here. We'll start out on
skid row. That's where the Lakers found themselves, appropriately enough,
because they played like they were on skid row as
the Minnesota tim Wolves mollywopped. That was a mollywopping is
(15:25):
what it was by Minnesota against the Lakers. A beat
down in La La Land. How great was that to watch?
How sweet was that? God? I loved it? Man was
at a great game? Beautiful? Need to package that, need
that every day. Can we get three more of those
from Minnesota? Three more of those games? Anthony Edwards did
not lead the way. He was not the person driving
(15:50):
the train, the locomotive. No, no, no, he was in
the middle. It wasn't like a box car. He wasn't
leading the way. He did flirt with a triple w
He had twenty two points and Jaden McDaniels mcmagic for
Minnesota twenty five points, eleven of thirteen He took thirteen
shots in a playoff game on the road, a hostile
(16:11):
environment with all those Hollywood celebrities there ready to boo him,
and he only missed two shots eleven of thirteen nine
rebounds for the Minnesota basketball team. The Lakers were completely emasculated.
How masculated was it for the pathetic Lakers on their
home floor in game one of a playoff series? Even
(16:31):
Magic Johnson, by his standards unloaded. Magic took to social media.
Of course, he doesn't actually use social media. What he
does is he calls someone who does know how to
use social media and then they put the message out verbatim.
So he'll like say, hey, here's here's the deal. It's
kind of like in court, you know, have that person
with the typewriter. They're typing out everything right there, going is,
(16:52):
Magic calls someone up and they type it all out.
So Magic ripped in to the Lakers there. They were
the only home team to lose on Saturday in the playoffs,
and they end up losing that game by twenty something points.
But Magic said it was one of the Lakers' worst
performances this season. Well, that's a bull take. Nobody else
(17:13):
has that take. He said, they were flat, they had
no energy, and they played like it was a regular
season game. W Actually, if they played like a regular
season game, they would have won, because that's usually what
they did in the regular season. But wait, there's more.
Magic also took shots at podcaster JJ Redick, who's pretending
to be a basketball coach. Where's all those basketball media
(17:34):
guys that were licking Reddicks toes? Now after that game,
that's my commentary, not Magic's. Magic said, coach JJ Reddick
did a great job all season, but he didn't do
a good job in game one. Oh, that's that's harsh.
Magic wrote, the Lakers stood around on offense, played too
much one on one basketball, and he meeting Reddick, did
(17:57):
not did not make any necessary adjustments. All right, let
us discuss the question how much trouble are the Luca
Huka Luka Doncik Lakers in after Game one of the playoffs.
So I've got nineteen nineties rock monster, truck and torts
(18:19):
not torta torts, and we will combine all of these
things together and we're going to make a giant cookie.
There's a box full of giant cookies. This is a lemon. Lemon.
We're gonna make a lemon cake cookie because that looks
really good. All right, So numb bur I get a
numb burn. Yeah. Malar scale of concern, which is the
(18:41):
measurement that matters more than all other measurements. Now it
goes one to ten the Malar scale of concern. And
I'm not gonna sit here and be some kind of
shock jock and say it's like a thousand. I'm not
gonna do that. But on the Malar scale of concern,
one to ten, with ten being you're cooked. You're cooking
(19:02):
seven point five, seven point five for the Lakers. On
the Mallard scale of concern, put do in your pipe
and smoke it. Seven point five, seven point five for
the Lakers, you've already lost home court. Check all right,
Minnesota set the mood. It was like a nice candlelight dinner,
(19:24):
and they enjoyed themselves in your own arena. There for
all the hype, all the build up, everything, you went
out there and you pitdled down your leg is what
you did. You were flaccid, and the whole world saw
the whole world saw it right. It was a surgical takedown.
(19:45):
You should have stopped the game when it was six
to nothing. After that, all downhill, all downhill. Uh, And
it did appear. Now maybe this is just my interpretation.
What do I know? It looked like Minnesota was playing
at a different speed. You know, it's like the varsity
versus the junior varsity. Minnesota was just quicker. They were
(20:06):
all over the place, and it appeared they had extra
players on the court at certain points, like it's like
there's just moving around and the yin and the yang
was poetry in motion to watch that. And then you
had Lebron James out there lumbering around. He took eighteen
shots to get nineteen points. So I didn't play in
the NBA, but that blows eighteen shots to get nineteen points.
(20:31):
And the combo of Lebron and Luca turned the ball
over nine times combined. And that was really one of
the stories here, the points off turnovers giving Minnesota easy opportunities.
But all those pointing out that Hukah Luca Luka Dancik
his first playoff game here his kryptonite. When we talked
about this during the course of the season, all the
(20:52):
Lakers are not a very good defensive teams. Oh, everything's fine,
they won. I think twenty of twenty four at one point.
But here we are playoff game game one, and all
of those critiques that you said, oh, you're just being
a hater, you know what you're talking about. Yeah, it's
like nineteen nineties rock out their limp biscuit. They were limp.
They were limp out there on the court. And the
(21:14):
most staggering of all, most staggering of all statistics, Minnesota
was twenty one of forty two on three pointed shots
in game one. So, well, it's not done. It's not
Gradman chuck well, but fifty percent. But when you dig
even deeper, the nerds listen to the nerds. So the
(21:36):
nerds broke it down. Of the forty two three point
shots that Minnesota attempted, how many of them were classified
as wide open shots? You gotta guess, how about twenty
seven of the forty two wide open, meaning the only
thing that will likely stop that shot from going in
(21:57):
is the air conditioning in the gymnasium. There's no defender
in sight. It's you versus the rim, man versus rim.
Twenty seven wide open three point shots white open. A
professional basketball team allowed another team to have twenty seven
wide open shots. All right, Well, so well that's a lot, okay, right,
(22:18):
how many were classified as open? How about fifteen classified
as wide open? So you do the math on that,
that gets you to forty two. That means that were
there was not a single three point attempt that Minnesota
took that came against a tight defensive presence by the Lakers.
This is what we were talking about. They blow They're done,
(22:41):
they are so screwed the Lakers. Oh my god, that
is a stagnation situation. Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. And the
Lakers had it was playing eight on five. They had
the referees yet again, as they always do, right, the
NBA always looks out for the Lakers, And that didn't
even help. It was eight on five. Minnesota won a
(23:03):
game eight on five, eight on five, unbelieve, outside of
taking the fouls late garbage time game over, Minnesota was
whistled for twenty one personal fouls. The Lakers had six,
a plus fifteen foul advantage and a team got blown
(23:25):
out in their own gym. How much the Lakers sucks
so much more? I mean, I can't put into words
how bad this team is right now? Horrible? All right,
now'll pitch you, I will address the Komodo dragon of
the room in the Mile High City. The Denver Nuggets,
who barely came back, had to go to over time.
(23:47):
The Nuggets sucked so much they couldn't even get a
shot up at the end of regulation. They could have
won it in regulation. They're so inept, the Nuggets. They
couldn't get a shot up at the end of regulation,
but in the end they did pull it out in
over Zion. I mean, it really wasn't a case where
the Nuggets played all that well we'll get to that
in a second. But the Nuggets. Some people pointing out, well,
(24:10):
Russell Westbrook in a big three point shot, and of
course I guess they overlook the fact that he didn't
even get a shot up at the end of regulation
and all that. But would you mind sharing your point
of view on the Kawhi Leonard Clippers vibe as they
lose Game one on the road in Denver. So surprisingly,
the Clippers are actually in much better shape than the
(24:32):
Lakers are for multiple reasons. I can break this down
for you. I don't know if you know ball or not,
but I know ball, and we can break this down.
But if you think that the one thing here the
Clippers did and the Nuggets didn't really beat them. The
Clippers beat themselves, and when you beat yourself, that's easy
to clean up. It's not like there's like the Lakers
cannot think they're in good shape because Minnesota just clocked them. Right.
(24:56):
The Timberwolves looked like they were playing a different sport
than the late the Clippers. The Nuggets aren't even that good.
It was because of self inflicted They did the old
Plexico Buris thing here. They stopped driving the monster truck.
They were driving the monster truck the grave digger. They
dug their own grave in this game. And it wasn't
because of great Denver defense. If you know ball, you
(25:19):
know that the Clippers gave the game away and just
don't give the game all. You'll win. You're better than
the Nuggets. Everyone knows that you're better than the Nuggets.
They're gonna win the next game. Denver outscored the People's
team by plus twenty because of Clipper mistake Clipper turnovers.
Kawhi Leonard had an egregious mistake late in this game,
(25:43):
but seven turnovers by him. He hasn't had that many
in four years, which is probably like seven games because
he doesn't played that much. But you take away the
fact that the Clippers were eighteen points better head on,
meaning not points off turnt, straight up without the turnt,
with the self inflicted mistakes by the Clippers, the Clippers
outscored the Douglas by eighteen points. Holy crap, they sucked.
(26:05):
The Nuggers blow plus eighteen belly to belly, shoulders, shoulder,
face to face, and ask for Russell Westbrook. Let Russ cook,
as they say in the NFL. I know this is basketball,
but that's the guy you want. You want Russell Westbrook.
You leave him wide open. And if this guy makes
more shots at the end of games, fine, the guy
(26:27):
sucks and everyone knows it. He's not a clutch player,
Russell Westbrook. If he beats it, that's all right. He
is the worst volume three point shooter in NBA history,
Russell Westbrook. And it's really not close. We saw him
fail to even get a shot up at the end
of regulation. And we'll see how this goes. But love
(26:49):
the clips, bet your mortgage, bet your mortgage. Clips coming
back Game two, that'll be going with the clips now,
final point to New York. We go we're Jalen Brunson
scored thirty four points and he was hobbling. Oh the drama.
These guys are all Thespians. Oh my leg's gonna fall off,
(27:10):
My arm's gonna fall off. Jayaln Russon had thirty four points.
Campaign had eleven of his fourteen in the fourth quarter.
The Knickerbockers storm back down big. They come back twenty
one to nothing run. How do you do? Twenty one
nothing run? And they rally get an eleven point win
(27:30):
at the Mecca. There the crowd forming a mosh pit
in Manhattan after the game. The long suffering nick fans
do not know that it's only the first round of
the playoffs. Rather embarrassing. There you go, so first round.
The Pistons. Their NBA record losing streak goes on and
on and on. Now, at fifteen games in a row
(27:54):
the Pistons have lost in the plus, last time they
won a playoff game was seven teen years ago, Game
four of the Eastern Conference Finals in eight so it's
been a minute since the Pistons won. Now there are
factions of the basketball media that have to write these
nice little stories on these pay websites and then the
(28:15):
general theme is that the reason the Pistons lost that
game was because of inexperience, that they're not an experienced
playoff team and that's why they lost the game. And
that is to that, I say, nonsense. Did Cade Cuttingham
and the Pistons lose because they lacked playoff experience? I say,
phoey is what I say, phoe phoe pooey fooy fooey
(28:39):
phooeye is what I say. Absolutely not Detroit. What they
did here it had nothing to do with experience and
any of that stuff. They pulled the torts, not a torta.
They pulled the torts. They sucked from head to toe
in the fourth quarter of that game. But it wasn't
because the Knicks were this amazing lockdown team. It was
not because of a lack of experience. Knicks don't have
(29:00):
that much experience either. What do we do not success?
When I think of kat Karl Anthony Towns from his
days in Minnesota, I think of him flopping around the
court as a loser in many big situations where he vanished,
for example, and Detroit one of the players that was
the worst of the worst, the most egregious for the
Pistons was Tobias Harris who had a big first half
(29:21):
you saw the game, and then did almost nothing after that.
And that guy's played in over sixty playoff games. So
what's his excuse when he wrote the vomit comet at
the end of that game. So we'll see what happens
in that. But the Knicks twenty one nothing run. Just
don't check out for six seven minutes and you're you're
(29:42):
in fining ship.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
There be sure to catch live editions of The Ben
Meler Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific.
Here we go, Here we go to third degree. This
is one big gets.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Grill, all right.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
So ahead of the Pistons against the Knicks, longtime Pistons
announcer George Blaha Blah had nothing but praise for the
former number one pick Kid Cunningham, saying that the Pistons
have a chance down the road to win a championship. Now, Ben,
despite losing game one, do you think that Detroit has
finally entered a new era of legit competitiveness?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Do I think they're gonna win a championship anytime soon? No?
Do I think they could be a playoff team in
the East every year for the next couple of years. Yes, absolutely,
But blahas on the payroll. What do you expect Blaha
to say? He's literally in the tank for the Pistons next.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
With Arch Manning set to take over for the Longhorns
next season, coach Sarkisian said over the weekend that Manning
takes after his grandfather more so than his uncles, and
that he has surprising athleticism for his size. Ben, do
you expect Arch to lead Texas back into the college
football playoffs?
Speaker 1 (30:49):
No, here's what I expect. I expect the hype for
the twenty twenty six NFL Draft Arch Manning top pick
in the draft. They'll be teams tanking right and left.
That's what I don't. I think Texas is going to
be back in the playoffs. But Arch Manning. You can
hear nothing but Arch Manning stories from college football for
the next you know whatever. The season begins here in
(31:10):
the fall next.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
The latest hot draft prediction has the Raiders taking Ashtroon
genty with the number six overall pick in the draft. However,
some analysts as saying that this would be a bad
move for Vegas. Yeah, Ben, do you agree?
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah? I'm not taking a running back in the top
ten of the draft. I'm not. I mean, this guy
just looks like a good player. I just wouldn't do it.
I would about boards for you. Okay, I got you.
I still wouldn't do it. It's a replaceable position. I
wouldn't do it. Have me now he passes, that is,
put it on the five. I un the dog. I won,
eat dog, eat dog. I won the game.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
He dog. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk
lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at
foxsports Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search
FSR to listen live. Hey, sorts, figure, guy or girl?
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Who got here?
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Was you talking? Two sons?
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Here?
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Some instant advice? Hold that thought. No one's paid attention
to me for ten whole seconds. And if you don't
like it anyway, we go see insta advice line unstreamed radio.
The safety that is off and who needs our advice?
Who needs our wisdom or the consensus of the people,
by the people and for the people, would be the Lakers.
(32:25):
The sky is falling in Luca Land. The Lakers were
gobsmacked by the Timberwolves in Game one, a domination situation.
Minnesota led by as many as twenty seven points in
that game. They shot fifty percent, mostly wide open three
point attempts. No defense by the Lakers. Looks like they're
(32:46):
gonna get swept. So any advice to Luka, Lebron and
the Lakers. You're live on the air when you hear
my voice. Hello line one, you're on the air at
eight seven seven ninety nine on Fox. Hello line one
Morning time. The true that they changed that. All right,
there is a that's Rick and Maryland. Yes, your next Hello,
(33:07):
are we giving advice here to the Lakers? Hello line
number two.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
You need to stop worrying about the Lakers.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
All right, Let's go to you online three. Hello line three,
you're on the Airline three. It's the instant advice line
for the Lakers. Line three.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Your advice is gonna save the Lakers.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
They suck.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Start planning your vacation.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
That's a good job. That's that's a call. Why fish?
That guy's a loser. Let's go to you online one.
Hello line one. You're on the Airline one. It's the
instant advice line for the Lakers. Hello line one, care
a terrible product? No, that's that's hang up on that guy,
dump back. Those are the greatest. Dare you let's blasphemy
(33:46):
dump I love the Cadbury. By the way, The instant
Advice line brought to you my dollars shave club. You're
placing it everything you need to stay smooth and smell grade.
Visit dollar shave clip dot com, slash draft and use
promo code draft for twenty percent off your order of
twenty dollars or more plus free shipping. Hello. Line two,
you're on the air. Instant advice for the Lakers. Hello,
(34:06):
line two, he on, all right, thank you for that.
Yes a Line three, you're on the Airline three.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Hello, have the team's owner go to Florida and get
a handy.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
There's our guy from Maine checking in. All right, you're next.
It's the instant advice line for the Lakers as they
were absolutely thunderstruck by the timber Wolves in the game
over the weekend. Hello, you're on the air. Yeah, this
is just take two weeks off and quinn. Okay, that's
it's good advice. That's what you've done.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Line one, you're on the Airline one. We're giving advice
to the Luca Lakers blown out at home by Minnesota.
Trust the part. Okay, well it depends, yes. Sometimes the
silent assassins are the ones that really get you. Hello,
Line number two, you're on the airline too, Hello.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Jason GIOPPI, slup buster. That's what they mean.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
There you go get get a bunch of ugly people
to come hook up with them. A line A large
step people. A line three, Hello, line three, some pizza
ban morning. Oh look at that as Rick two calls
already from Rick and Maryly he's getting through eight seven
seven ninety nine on Fox. We've got your what kind
of pie? You want a pepperoni? You want a cheese?
You wanna? I don't need to I don't need the mushroom,
(35:22):
but I'll get you the mallard pie with the gar
like the onion, the bell pepper.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Line line number five, Hello, line.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Five, Hello mate.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
All right, hello mate, let's go to you on line one.
We're doing the instant advice line for the Lakers. Gotta
go quick. Line one. Hello, Okay, there we go. We've
checked that box. Will we hear from a certain caller
in Boston or you might be going to the marathon today?
A line too, I will think you'll call it hello.
Line two, probably not line two.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
The Lakers sat playing no defense, win championship.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, your pacers looked all right though. Your pacers look
pretty good. Line three, Hello, line three, you're on the
air god both to pro screamers, Okay, absolutely, I one more,
will do more. Hurry up, go ahead, peg at mind
you lie two, you're on the air, line too. Advice
to the Lakers, go lie to Okay, something about I
(36:19):
couldn't make that ut. I don't know what that meant.
I don't I don't want to know. It's not any
not any should have got on line one high mallor
Thanks for listening to the best of the Ben Mahler
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
from two to six Eastern eleven pm to three am
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and to find your local
station for the Benmatlers Show at Foxsports Radio dot com.
You can find it there or stream us live every
night on the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
This is the best of the Ben Maler Show on
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
In all weekends. Basketball Poloser I was like one or
two DC games. Welcome in the beginning of another week
of the Ben Mahler Show. We are in the air
everywhares we rub elbows, and boy do we rub them
(00:54):
from the theater of the mind, coast to coast, border
the border, and beyond on the vast in tantalizingly powerful
microphones of FSR emmating live from inside the greasy spoon,
frying up, piping hot sports takes under the cover of
(01:15):
darkness from the Fox Sports Radio studios as we hang
out side by side, and we begin the festivus of
talk here with the last game that was played, and
it was eastern night. Now still on the west, it's
still eastern night, but the end of Day two of
(01:36):
the NBA card And I don't know if you were
watching all this, maybe a es she's do something else,
but I checked it out. I consumed the product. It
kind of goes with a job. So we watched it
so you would not have to to comment to comment
on the events that took place over the weekend. So
pro bouncy ball. If you hate pro bouncy ball, you're
(01:57):
not gonna like the next couple of months because a
lot of pro bouncy ball. But we do have the
NFL Draft which is coming up later this week, which
is which is a good NFL draft, So we have
that to break it up. But we're gonna start in
the lone Star State where the number two seeded rock
Cats we're playing host to the Stephen Curry numbers seven,
(02:21):
number seven. We don't have a seven. I don't have
a button. We don't have it. We need a set.
We need the ones, the twos, the trees, the fourth,
the five, the sixth, the seventh, the eights, and the nines.
We need. If we have all of those, we're good.
So we can have random listers just call up and
just start singing different numbers and then we have every number,
and then we're gonna need the a's, the b's, the c's,
(02:41):
the d's, the e's. The end, we'll go through the
whole alphabet and we'll have a letter and we'll have
a number for everything. But anyway, I don't saw the
game or night. It was the last game they played
end not too long before we cracked the microphones here
on on FSR. So the Warriors tray for very little,
(03:02):
like none. They dominated, I mean early, very early in
the game, but the wars led by as many as
twenty three points, and then there was, as it typically happens,
Houston snaked their way back into the game a little
bit down by nine entering the fourth quarter. I never
got the feeling that the Rockets were going to actually
win the game, and that turned out to be the case.
(03:24):
My premonition was accurate. Now Stephen Curry twelve of nineteen
from the four, did not hit a three point shot
for a while, but then ended up five of nine
from three point land, and Jimmy Butler getting her done
there with twenty five points, seven rebound, six assists, five steals,
and a partridge in a paar tree. As a game
(03:45):
two will be played next month. No game two will
be Wednesday, because you know it's very difficult to play
games more than two days apart. My god, So the
next game will be on Wednesday there and in Houston,
so they will continue. Now you know the way it
works here. The better story is in the losing locker room.
And so let us discuss the events that took place
(04:08):
there in Houston. Who gets the blame bowl of tex
mechs for the Roquets as they lose home court advantage
in their first game out in this particular series. So
I have brand ambassadors, sandwich board, and hall pass, and
(04:29):
we will combine all of these things together and we
are going to make a wonderful, delicious plate filled with
banana cream pie. Right, say a little dish there with
banana cream pie. All right? So a the Sins watching
the Rockets, and the Rockets are a physically talented team.
(04:51):
They're a younger team. They won a bunch of games
actually tried during the regular season, and so you racked
up a lot of wins and all that stuff. And
it's great. The way you look at these things, it's
OCAM's razor. The most obvious is usually the right answer.
On these things, and I mean people overlook the obvious
to try to find more complex explanations for the outcome
(05:12):
of events. I don't believe it's that deep. It's just sports.
It's not that deep. And it's right in front of
your schnaz right in front of your schnaz. Here when
you look at it, you got Jalen Green on one
side and Fred van Vliet on the other side. High
crimes and misdemeanors for these two. Who stinks well those
(05:33):
two right off the top. Now it was like an
urban legend playing out in the NBA playoffs right in
front of Ryse. And now normally it's just the vanishing hitchhiker
that just gets in the car and then you don't
know where they went and what happened, And or you
see them off in the distance, you get closer, they're
not there. You don't know. But these guys Green and
(05:54):
Van Vliet were brand ambassadors for preparation age. They played
like they had hemorrhoids and watching them, you thought you
had Hemorrhoy's how bad was it? It was so bad.
Jalen Green three of fifteen from the floor aer four
from Downtown. Van Vliet who's got playoff experience from the
(06:15):
stays in Toronto four of nineteen from the floor. So
if you do the math, the Rockets starting backcourt was
outscored by twenty eight points by Golden State, just backcourt
to backcourt, Mono Amano, the Warriors starting backcourt shot fifty
three percent from the floor. The Rockets starting backcourt attempted
(06:41):
a total of thirty four shots and they made seven
of them, which sucks anywhere you go. The rest of
the team, the Rockets, if you take the back court
out right in the Gifson Botts, Candy Nuts, the rest
of the back court or the rest of the front
court and everyone else outscored the Warriors by eighteen. How
about on the other you've got Stephen Curry and how
(07:03):
is he feeling? How's Golden State feeling right about now?
After this performance in Game one? So this is the blueprint.
It's kind of clear that this is the blueprint, right
and nothing radical. This is why they went on got
Jimmy Butler, playoff Jimmy, as the legend goes Jimmy Butler.
It was a prototypical type performance and fortunately the NBA
(07:24):
giving the Warriors lots of time off in between games,
so they don't they don't have to worry about that.
They'll rest and relaxation, enjoy Houston to go back out
and play on Wednesday. Now to the dust Bowl. A
game that was so bad? How bad was it was
so bad? We need to mention the number one seed
in the entire NBA Oklahoma City in the Western Conference.
(07:47):
There they put on a clinic and it wasn't just
a click. I don't believe that does justice to what
happened in this particular game, the smashing of the grizz
in Memphis. Memphis is completely torn to bits in Okay,
see now, a fifty one point margin. An NBA team
that made the playoffs, granted they were in the plane,
(08:09):
lost a game by fifty one points. Do you know
how bad one has to play to lose a game
by fifty one points? And it's just stunning. And now
John Morand attempted to reassure the fan base that things
are going to be okay, that it will never get
(08:30):
this bad again. Let's go to the audio tape, take
a listen.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
We'd never no play about it again. Defensive intensity, they
had a lot of easy looks, which pretty much getting
you know wherever they wanted on the floor and offensively
taking care of the ball.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Defensive intensity. I think my fat ass could have played
better defense than those guys. There was no defensive intention
all right, So Ja moran, they're not real confident. As
he attempted to reassure the fan base that everything will
be okay, and he said that money quote, we will
never play that bad again. Is that strong enough? Well,
(09:07):
that was a rhetorical question. Of course, it's not strong enough. No,
you're supposed to be the franchise player here. I am
a franchise were here. I'm talking about a game, a
playoff game, a playoff game we lost by fifty one points.
My god, fire the coach again. Where's Taylor Jenkins? Fire
him again? Not the coach? Fire him again. You've lost
a playoff game by fifty one points. And I flashed
(09:28):
back years ago when I started out and radio, I
covered the NBA regularly and one of the people he's
long gone now, Bill Fitch. It was a Hall of
Fame coach, and he explained to me that no matter
how bad one team is compared to the other team
in terms of talent, per see the perception of talent
He explained to me, if the lesser team plays with
(09:49):
the proper effort and energy and plays the fundamentally sound
way of basketball, they will not get blown out. That
if you just put the effort in that you can
the gap the talent gap. UH. And I watched, I'm like,
whoa that is? I thought. I thought maybe my phone
had glitched when I looked at the score, and I
(10:09):
was like, ah, no, I must not be right. I
mean maybe somebody hacked the uh, the website that I
used to look at the score, and then I turned
it on and I was like, oh my god, what
a monstrosity. This is unbelievable. I mean, holy Canoli. This
is not the vomit comment that the vomit commet is
not strong enough here. This is somebody needs to be
(10:32):
court martialed. There needs to be a court martial here.
Naming and shaming. I'm talking about sensing multiple people and
you can go down the list. There's like seven or
eight prime suspects here who need to wear the sandwich
board and walk outside the arena, and the sandwich board
can point out how they violated, uh, the the tenants
(10:54):
of basketball competition and all that, and they're guilty of
dereliction of duties. Man, That is what does a game
by fifty one points? I mean, oh, Oklahoma City's great,
They're not that much greater than Memphis, Mike got all right.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Now.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Last word to Boston we go, where the Celtics were
trailing midway through, but in the end they dominated when
they they pulled away there in the second half and
they d up winning. Jason Tatum though the story here
not the game with Orlando. The story is Jason Tatum.
Was it a snap crackle pop situation? Tatum? He came
(11:34):
down tumbling down on his wrist. Oh, my aching wrist,
and they'll postgame X ray situation for Jason Tatum. He
said of his right wrist, it was clean, the X
ray said, he said, was clean, and he was all right,
all right, he said. He came down there in the
(11:55):
fourth quarter. As Jason Tatum ended up playing, he had
seven seventeen points eight of twenty two. Didn't do much
anything early in the game, played nearly forty minutes of
game time here. The injury happened with eight twenty eight
to go in the fourth quarter, and he was driving
for a dunk attempt at the rim and ow aUI
(12:17):
aUI Kazawi. I think that's the actual sound aUI Kazawi's
what he said. Possibly not. So question do you believe
Do you believe Jason Tatum when he says his wrist
is all right, and he also said the X rays
were cleaned? You believe? Do you believe all that? So
my position on this is whether the X ray was
(12:39):
clean or not. I assume it was, and him saying
he's all right, my position on that is it's not cracked.
It's not cracked. However, Tatum now has something very valuable
for the next three or four games, possibly longer than that.
He's got a Hall pass. He starts clanking up missus,
(13:01):
he's got well, you know, it's in my wrist, and
I'm trying to fight through it, trying to fight through
the wrisk problem. And he's got the immunity papers. If
he starts making a brick house the old brick house there,
clanking jumpers right and left and just not being very efficient.
So this this has the makings of what a gentleman's sweep,
(13:23):
as they like to call it, in the playoffs, where
you end up winning the games at home. You lose
Game three, and then you bounce back and win the
next couple and winning five, and that's that the Celtics
flipping the switch in the second half of that game,
and so they end up winning by a comfortable margin
at home against Orlando.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
All dressed up for a dud, welcome in not beginning
of another hour of the Ben Malor Show. We are
in the air everywhere as we stay in touch and
provide the pulse of the night. There is still a
(14:13):
pulse there coast to coast, border, the border and beyond
on the vast and nourishingly powerful microphones of fs are
ammating live from the bell as we ring the bell
all night long from the Fox Sports Radio studios. And
I know JJ in Renton loves to ring bells unless
(14:37):
he doesn't. But here we are hanging out together again
this hour and our lead to begin the hour, we
continue our in depth team coverage from Pro bouncy Ball,
Round and Round and Round. Now we talked about the
games that were played on Sunday, not too much to
dissect there. Lopsided everywhere pretty much, I mean nothing. They
(14:59):
came down to the bitter end in that. But we're
gonna turn our focus to what happened on Saturday over
the week, and we'll pick apart the games on Saturday.
Get back to the conversation here. We'll start out on
skid row. That's where the Lakers found themselves, appropriately enough,
because they played like they were on skid row as
the Minnesota tim Wolves mollywopped. That was a mollywopping is
(15:25):
what it was by Minnesota against the Lakers. A beat
down in La La Land. How great was that to watch?
How sweet was that? God? I loved it? Man was
at a great game? Beautiful? Need to package that, need
that every day. Can we get three more of those
from Minnesota? Three more of those games? Anthony Edwards did
not lead the way. He was not the person driving
(15:50):
the train, the locomotive. No, no, no, he was in
the middle. It wasn't like a box car. He wasn't
leading the way. He did flirt with a triple w
He had twenty two points and Jaden McDaniels mcmagic for
Minnesota twenty five points, eleven of thirteen He took thirteen
shots in a playoff game on the road, a hostile
(16:11):
environment with all those Hollywood celebrities there ready to boo him,
and he only missed two shots eleven of thirteen nine
rebounds for the Minnesota basketball team. The Lakers were completely emasculated.
How masculated was it for the pathetic Lakers on their
home floor in game one of a playoff series? Even
(16:31):
Magic Johnson, by his standards unloaded. Magic took to social media.
Of course, he doesn't actually use social media. What he
does is he calls someone who does know how to
use social media and then they put the message out verbatim.
So he'll like say, hey, here's here's the deal. It's
kind of like in court, you know, have that person
with the typewriter. They're typing out everything right there, going is,
(16:52):
Magic calls someone up and they type it all out.
So Magic ripped in to the Lakers there. They were
the only home team to lose on Saturday in the playoffs,
and they end up losing that game by twenty something points.
But Magic said it was one of the Lakers' worst
performances this season. Well, that's a bull take. Nobody else
(17:13):
has that take. He said, they were flat, they had
no energy, and they played like it was a regular
season game. W Actually, if they played like a regular
season game, they would have won, because that's usually what
they did in the regular season. But wait, there's more.
Magic also took shots at podcaster JJ Redick, who's pretending
to be a basketball coach. Where's all those basketball media
(17:34):
guys that were licking Reddicks toes? Now after that game,
that's my commentary, not Magic's. Magic said, coach JJ Reddick
did a great job all season, but he didn't do
a good job in game one. Oh, that's that's harsh.
Magic wrote, the Lakers stood around on offense, played too
much one on one basketball, and he meeting Reddick, did
(17:57):
not did not make any necessary adjustments. All right, let
us discuss the question how much trouble are the Luca
Huka Luka Doncik Lakers in after Game one of the playoffs.
So I've got nineteen nineties rock monster, truck and torts
(18:19):
not torta torts, and we will combine all of these
things together and we're going to make a giant cookie.
There's a box full of giant cookies. This is a lemon. Lemon.
We're gonna make a lemon cake cookie because that looks
really good. All right, So numb bur I get a
numb burn. Yeah. Malar scale of concern, which is the
(18:41):
measurement that matters more than all other measurements. Now it
goes one to ten the Malar scale of concern. And
I'm not gonna sit here and be some kind of
shock jock and say it's like a thousand. I'm not
gonna do that. But on the Malar scale of concern,
one to ten, with ten being you're cooked. You're cooking
(19:02):
seven point five, seven point five for the Lakers. On
the Mallard scale of concern, put do in your pipe
and smoke it. Seven point five, seven point five for
the Lakers, you've already lost home court. Check all right,
Minnesota set the mood. It was like a nice candlelight dinner,
(19:24):
and they enjoyed themselves in your own arena. There for
all the hype, all the build up, everything, you went
out there and you pitdled down your leg is what
you did. You were flaccid, and the whole world saw
the whole world saw it right. It was a surgical takedown.
(19:45):
You should have stopped the game when it was six
to nothing. After that, all downhill, all downhill. Uh, And
it did appear. Now maybe this is just my interpretation.
What do I know? It looked like Minnesota was playing
at a different speed. You know, it's like the varsity
versus the junior varsity. Minnesota was just quicker. They were
(20:06):
all over the place, and it appeared they had extra
players on the court at certain points, like it's like
there's just moving around and the yin and the yang
was poetry in motion to watch that. And then you
had Lebron James out there lumbering around. He took eighteen
shots to get nineteen points. So I didn't play in
the NBA, but that blows eighteen shots to get nineteen points.
(20:31):
And the combo of Lebron and Luca turned the ball
over nine times combined. And that was really one of
the stories here, the points off turnovers giving Minnesota easy opportunities.
But all those pointing out that Hukah Luca Luka Dancik
his first playoff game here his kryptonite. When we talked
about this during the course of the season, all the
(20:52):
Lakers are not a very good defensive teams. Oh, everything's fine,
they won. I think twenty of twenty four at one point.
But here we are playoff game game one, and all
of those critiques that you said, oh, you're just being
a hater, you know what you're talking about. Yeah, it's
like nineteen nineties rock out their limp biscuit. They were limp.
They were limp out there on the court. And the
(21:14):
most staggering of all, most staggering of all statistics, Minnesota
was twenty one of forty two on three pointed shots
in game one. So, well, it's not done. It's not
Gradman chuck well, but fifty percent. But when you dig
even deeper, the nerds listen to the nerds. So the
(21:36):
nerds broke it down. Of the forty two three point
shots that Minnesota attempted, how many of them were classified
as wide open shots? You gotta guess, how about twenty
seven of the forty two wide open, meaning the only
thing that will likely stop that shot from going in
(21:57):
is the air conditioning in the gymnasium. There's no defender
in sight. It's you versus the rim, man versus rim.
Twenty seven wide open three point shots white open. A
professional basketball team allowed another team to have twenty seven
wide open shots. All right, Well, so well that's a lot, okay, right,
(22:18):
how many were classified as open? How about fifteen classified
as wide open? So you do the math on that,
that gets you to forty two. That means that were
there was not a single three point attempt that Minnesota
took that came against a tight defensive presence by the Lakers.
This is what we were talking about. They blow They're done,
(22:41):
they are so screwed the Lakers. Oh my god, that
is a stagnation situation. Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. And the
Lakers had it was playing eight on five. They had
the referees yet again, as they always do, right, the
NBA always looks out for the Lakers, And that didn't
even help. It was eight on five. Minnesota won a
(23:03):
game eight on five, eight on five, unbelieve, outside of
taking the fouls late garbage time game over, Minnesota was
whistled for twenty one personal fouls. The Lakers had six,
a plus fifteen foul advantage and a team got blown
(23:25):
out in their own gym. How much the Lakers sucks
so much more? I mean, I can't put into words
how bad this team is right now? Horrible? All right,
now'll pitch you, I will address the Komodo dragon of
the room in the Mile High City. The Denver Nuggets,
who barely came back, had to go to over time.
(23:47):
The Nuggets sucked so much they couldn't even get a
shot up at the end of regulation. They could have
won it in regulation. They're so inept, the Nuggets. They
couldn't get a shot up at the end of regulation,
but in the end they did pull it out in
over Zion. I mean, it really wasn't a case where
the Nuggets played all that well we'll get to that
in a second. But the Nuggets. Some people pointing out, well,
(24:10):
Russell Westbrook in a big three point shot, and of
course I guess they overlook the fact that he didn't
even get a shot up at the end of regulation
and all that. But would you mind sharing your point
of view on the Kawhi Leonard Clippers vibe as they
lose Game one on the road in Denver. So surprisingly,
the Clippers are actually in much better shape than the
(24:32):
Lakers are for multiple reasons. I can break this down
for you. I don't know if you know ball or not,
but I know ball, and we can break this down.
But if you think that the one thing here the
Clippers did and the Nuggets didn't really beat them. The
Clippers beat themselves, and when you beat yourself, that's easy
to clean up. It's not like there's like the Lakers
cannot think they're in good shape because Minnesota just clocked them. Right.
(24:56):
The Timberwolves looked like they were playing a different sport
than the late the Clippers. The Nuggets aren't even that good.
It was because of self inflicted They did the old
Plexico Buris thing here. They stopped driving the monster truck.
They were driving the monster truck the grave digger. They
dug their own grave in this game. And it wasn't
because of great Denver defense. If you know ball, you
(25:19):
know that the Clippers gave the game away and just
don't give the game all. You'll win. You're better than
the Nuggets. Everyone knows that you're better than the Nuggets.
They're gonna win the next game. Denver outscored the People's
team by plus twenty because of Clipper mistake Clipper turnovers.
Kawhi Leonard had an egregious mistake late in this game,
(25:43):
but seven turnovers by him. He hasn't had that many
in four years, which is probably like seven games because
he doesn't played that much. But you take away the
fact that the Clippers were eighteen points better head on,
meaning not points off turnt, straight up without the turnt,
with the self inflicted mistakes by the Clippers, the Clippers
outscored the Douglas by eighteen points. Holy crap, they sucked.
(26:05):
The Nuggers blow plus eighteen belly to belly, shoulders, shoulder,
face to face, and ask for Russell Westbrook. Let Russ cook,
as they say in the NFL. I know this is basketball,
but that's the guy you want. You want Russell Westbrook.
You leave him wide open. And if this guy makes
more shots at the end of games, fine, the guy
(26:27):
sucks and everyone knows it. He's not a clutch player,
Russell Westbrook. If he beats it, that's all right. He
is the worst volume three point shooter in NBA history,
Russell Westbrook. And it's really not close. We saw him
fail to even get a shot up at the end
of regulation. And we'll see how this goes. But love
(26:49):
the clips, bet your mortgage, bet your mortgage. Clips coming
back Game two, that'll be going with the clips now,
final point to New York. We go we're Jalen Brunson
scored thirty four points and he was hobbling. Oh the drama.
These guys are all Thespians. Oh my leg's gonna fall off,
(27:10):
My arm's gonna fall off. Jayaln Russon had thirty four points.
Campaign had eleven of his fourteen in the fourth quarter.
The Knickerbockers storm back down big. They come back twenty
one to nothing run. How do you do? Twenty one
nothing run? And they rally get an eleven point win
(27:30):
at the Mecca. There the crowd forming a mosh pit
in Manhattan after the game. The long suffering nick fans
do not know that it's only the first round of
the playoffs. Rather embarrassing. There you go, so first round.
The Pistons. Their NBA record losing streak goes on and
on and on. Now, at fifteen games in a row
(27:54):
the Pistons have lost in the plus, last time they
won a playoff game was seven teen years ago, Game
four of the Eastern Conference Finals in eight so it's
been a minute since the Pistons won. Now there are
factions of the basketball media that have to write these
nice little stories on these pay websites and then the
(28:15):
general theme is that the reason the Pistons lost that
game was because of inexperience, that they're not an experienced
playoff team and that's why they lost the game. And
that is to that, I say, nonsense. Did Cade Cuttingham
and the Pistons lose because they lacked playoff experience? I say,
phoey is what I say, phoe phoe pooey fooy fooey
(28:39):
phooeye is what I say. Absolutely not Detroit. What they
did here it had nothing to do with experience and
any of that stuff. They pulled the torts, not a torta.
They pulled the torts. They sucked from head to toe
in the fourth quarter of that game. But it wasn't
because the Knicks were this amazing lockdown team. It was
not because of a lack of experience. Knicks don't have
(29:00):
that much experience either. What do we do not success?
When I think of kat Karl Anthony Towns from his
days in Minnesota, I think of him flopping around the
court as a loser in many big situations where he vanished,
for example, and Detroit one of the players that was
the worst of the worst, the most egregious for the
Pistons was Tobias Harris who had a big first half
(29:21):
you saw the game, and then did almost nothing after that.
And that guy's played in over sixty playoff games. So
what's his excuse when he wrote the vomit comet at
the end of that game. So we'll see what happens
in that. But the Knicks twenty one nothing run. Just
don't check out for six seven minutes and you're you're
(29:42):
in fining ship.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
There be sure to catch live editions of The Ben
Meler Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific.
Here we go, Here we go to third degree. This
is one big gets.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Grill, all right.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
So ahead of the Pistons against the Knicks, longtime Pistons
announcer George Blaha Blah had nothing but praise for the
former number one pick Kid Cunningham, saying that the Pistons
have a chance down the road to win a championship. Now, Ben,
despite losing game one, do you think that Detroit has
finally entered a new era of legit competitiveness?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Do I think they're gonna win a championship anytime soon? No?
Do I think they could be a playoff team in
the East every year for the next couple of years. Yes, absolutely,
But blahas on the payroll. What do you expect Blaha
to say? He's literally in the tank for the Pistons next.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
With Arch Manning set to take over for the Longhorns
next season, coach Sarkisian said over the weekend that Manning
takes after his grandfather more so than his uncles, and
that he has surprising athleticism for his size. Ben, do
you expect Arch to lead Texas back into the college
football playoffs?
Speaker 1 (30:49):
No, here's what I expect. I expect the hype for
the twenty twenty six NFL Draft Arch Manning top pick
in the draft. They'll be teams tanking right and left.
That's what I don't. I think Texas is going to
be back in the playoffs. But Arch Manning. You can
hear nothing but Arch Manning stories from college football for
the next you know whatever. The season begins here in
(31:10):
the fall next.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
The latest hot draft prediction has the Raiders taking Ashtroon
genty with the number six overall pick in the draft. However,
some analysts as saying that this would be a bad
move for Vegas. Yeah, Ben, do you agree?
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah? I'm not taking a running back in the top
ten of the draft. I'm not. I mean, this guy
just looks like a good player. I just wouldn't do it.
I would about boards for you. Okay, I got you.
I still wouldn't do it. It's a replaceable position. I
wouldn't do it. Have me now he passes, that is,
put it on the five. I un the dog. I won,
eat dog, eat dog. I won the game.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
He dog. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk
lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at
foxsports Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search
FSR to listen live. Hey, sorts, figure, guy or girl?
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Who got here?
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Was you talking? Two sons?
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Here?
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Some instant advice? Hold that thought. No one's paid attention
to me for ten whole seconds. And if you don't
like it anyway, we go see insta advice line unstreamed radio.
The safety that is off and who needs our advice?
Who needs our wisdom or the consensus of the people,
by the people and for the people, would be the Lakers.
(32:25):
The sky is falling in Luca Land. The Lakers were
gobsmacked by the Timberwolves in Game one, a domination situation.
Minnesota led by as many as twenty seven points in
that game. They shot fifty percent, mostly wide open three
point attempts. No defense by the Lakers. Looks like they're
(32:46):
gonna get swept. So any advice to Luka, Lebron and
the Lakers. You're live on the air when you hear
my voice. Hello line one, you're on the air at
eight seven seven ninety nine on Fox. Hello line one
Morning time. The true that they changed that. All right,
there is a that's Rick and Maryland. Yes, your next Hello,
(33:07):
are we giving advice here to the Lakers? Hello line
number two.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
You need to stop worrying about the Lakers.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
All right, Let's go to you online three. Hello line three,
you're on the Airline three. It's the instant advice line
for the Lakers. Line three.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Your advice is gonna save the Lakers.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
They suck.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Start planning your vacation.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
That's a good job. That's that's a call. Why fish?
That guy's a loser. Let's go to you online one.
Hello line one. You're on the Airline one. It's the
instant advice line for the Lakers. Hello line one, care
a terrible product? No, that's that's hang up on that guy,
dump back. Those are the greatest. Dare you let's blasphemy
(33:46):
dump I love the Cadbury. By the way, The instant
Advice line brought to you my dollars shave club. You're
placing it everything you need to stay smooth and smell grade.
Visit dollar shave clip dot com, slash draft and use
promo code draft for twenty percent off your order of
twenty dollars or more plus free shipping. Hello. Line two,
you're on the air. Instant advice for the Lakers. Hello,
(34:06):
line two, he on, all right, thank you for that.
Yes a Line three, you're on the Airline three.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Hello, have the team's owner go to Florida and get
a handy.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
There's our guy from Maine checking in. All right, you're next.
It's the instant advice line for the Lakers as they
were absolutely thunderstruck by the timber Wolves in the game
over the weekend. Hello, you're on the air. Yeah, this
is just take two weeks off and quinn. Okay, that's
it's good advice. That's what you've done.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Line one, you're on the Airline one. We're giving advice
to the Luca Lakers blown out at home by Minnesota.
Trust the part. Okay, well it depends, yes. Sometimes the
silent assassins are the ones that really get you. Hello,
Line number two, you're on the airline too, Hello.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Jason GIOPPI, slup buster. That's what they mean.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
There you go get get a bunch of ugly people
to come hook up with them. A line A large
step people. A line three, Hello, line three, some pizza
ban morning. Oh look at that as Rick two calls
already from Rick and Maryly he's getting through eight seven
seven ninety nine on Fox. We've got your what kind
of pie? You want a pepperoni? You want a cheese?
You wanna? I don't need to I don't need the mushroom,
(35:22):
but I'll get you the mallard pie with the gar
like the onion, the bell pepper.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Line line number five, Hello, line.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Five, Hello mate.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
All right, hello mate, let's go to you on line one.
We're doing the instant advice line for the Lakers. Gotta
go quick. Line one. Hello, Okay, there we go. We've
checked that box. Will we hear from a certain caller
in Boston or you might be going to the marathon today?
A line too, I will think you'll call it hello.
Line two, probably not line two.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
The Lakers sat playing no defense, win championship.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, your pacers looked all right though. Your pacers look
pretty good. Line three, Hello, line three, you're on the
air god both to pro screamers, Okay, absolutely, I one more,
will do more. Hurry up, go ahead, peg at mind
you lie two, you're on the air, line too. Advice
to the Lakers, go lie to Okay, something about I
(36:19):
couldn't make that ut. I don't know what that meant.
I don't I don't want to know. It's not any
not any should have got on line one high mallor
Host
Ben Maller
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